


Pride and Publications

by TheFoolsYouSee



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, The Good Witch Azura Book Club (The Owl House)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26560600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFoolsYouSee/pseuds/TheFoolsYouSee
Summary: A newcomer to the Azura Book Club challenges Luz's preconceptions about her own writing.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	Pride and Publications

There were many highlights of learning magic at a witch school, but for Luz the weekly meeting of the _Hexside Azura Book Club_ was a particular favourite. It had started with just her and Amity; the top student had balked a little at being put down on an actual list of club members in the Student Committee’s reports, and had questioned why they needed a classroom and a specific meeting time to discuss their favourite fantasy series if it was just going to be the two of them. But Luz had insisted. This was a fresh start for her at a brand new school and she wanted to experience everything she hadn’t been able to in the human realm. That meant an _official_ club.

They now numbered four – Luz, Amity, an excitable younger student called Roderick whose horns were still curling around his temples, and now Cleo, a bard track student and their newest member of two weeks. Luz still wasn’t sure exactly _how_ this human-published fantasy series was making its way to the Boiling Isles, but the two newcomers had sought the club out as already-avid fans. But although it felt wonderful for Luz to be able to share her fandom with real people, it did present something of a practical problem; a book club by definition involved reading books, and they had all read the whole series already. But they soon found a solution.

‘”’ _Now you will see my true power!_ ’”’ Luz snarled the words that she was reading from the loose sheets of paper in her hand, then switched to her regular voice for the narration. ‘” _The great dragon that had just been an old man spread out its wings and roared! Azura felt the ground shake with the noise, but stood her ground_.”’

She turned the page over, glancing up at the others who were following along in their own copies of her story on their desks. Roderick and Cleo turned their pages along with her, although Amity’s eyes were fixed on Luz. The human supposed that she must be giving as captivating a performance as she’d been aiming for and continued to read aloud.

‘” _Azura held her staff high above her head. ‘And now,’ she said, determination glimmering in her eyes, ‘You will see mine.’ The staff hummed with power and lifted her up a few feet into the air. It began to glow, and the light spread to envelop the young witch. Her cloak shifted and hardened into armour, her pointed hat melting down over her face into the shape of a helmet. She slammed down onto the ground in a crouch, and looked up at the dragon, her brand new battle form complete!_ ”’ Luz lowered the paper to her side. ‘And then it’s an action sequence that I’m still trying to work out how to do.’

‘It’s so cool!’ Roderick gasped. ‘Where did you get the idea for the armour?’

‘Oh, shameless stealing,’ Luz waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’s basically the same one from a show I watch, _Super Legionnaire Filament_.’

The amazed expression on Roderick’s face didn’t go anywhere and he looked back down at the pages of fanfiction on his desk, reading the last couple of lines to himself again.

‘I liked the romance between Azura and Hecate,’ Amity said. ‘I liked the bit where they kissed and they were girls.’

Luz smiled and shook her head a little at her blushing friend. The further she got through her ex-rival’s aloof exterior, the more she saw of the girl's soppy side. Maybe she should set her up with someone.

Putting the thought aside for now, she turned her eyes to Cleo. ‘So… what did you think?’ Luz asked the newcomer, a little nervously.

‘How does the battle armour spell work if her cloak was the Relic of the Western Warlock?’ Cleo questioned.

‘Well I knew it shouldn’t _technically_ be able to transform,’ Luz admitted. ‘But I always think it’s worth trying a fun idea even if it doesn’t fit with canon.’

Cleo looked unconvinced. The blonde witchling had been a little hard to read since she’d joined; her knowledge of the technical details of _The_ _Good Witch Azura_ books was encyclopaedic and she could quote entire passages from memory. But she’d also asked some odd questions, like why Azura was so obsessed with finding peaceful solutions to conflicts when she could easily be killing all her enemies. Luz had had to accept that human morality didn’t always directly translate to a demon realm, and she certainly didn’t want her club to be torn apart by ideological rifts. There was room to celebrate both the intricate lore of the series and its fun tone.

‘Are you gonna bring more next time?’ Roderick asked excitedly.

‘I don’t know when I’ll figure out the next bit, but I’ll bring it in as soon as I do,’ Luz promised. ‘But if you guys have any fanfiction, or fan _art_ …’ She gave a pointed look at Amity, who clutched her notebook close to her chest bashfully. ‘…then bring them in!’

‘I’ve got something I’ve written,’ Cleo said. She made a quick circle with her finger and a stack of a couple of hundred pages appeared in the air, dropping with a thud onto her desk.

Luz eyed the great wad of paper. ‘That might make us run over for today. But we can start on it next week!’

Cleo nodded appreciatively and they began re-ordering the classroom. Luz packed away the neatly written register she had made and brought down the large banner that she hung up over the wall at the beginning of each meeting. After it was folded, she turned and started with a small yelp of surprise - Cleo was stood a little too close to her, holding out her story.

‘Would you read this before next week please?’ the blonde girl asked. ‘I’d really like to know what you think.’

‘Sure, Cleo,’ Luz recovered with a smile and took the clumsily bound pages from her.

‘Thank you.’ Cleo nodded again and walked out with her quick gait past Amity, who was waiting at the door. Luz squeezed the bundle of paper as carefully as she could into her bag alongside her own story before joining her friend. They walked out of the school with Roderick, who bombarded Luz with questions about her anime inspirations.

* * *

When Luz walked through the back door of the Owl House, only King was in the kitchen. The little skull-headed demon was curled up on a stool and raised his head and stretched when he heard the door close.

‘Oh hey Luz,’ he said with a yawn. ‘Eda said she had to go out to do something mysterious and foreboding, so she’s left you dinner.’

He pointed a claw toward one of the kitchen counters. Luz looked over and saw a small, _live_ , rabbit-like creature with antlers sticking out of its head sat in a cage. It glanced over at her and scratched at its ear with a paw.

‘Uh… that’s ok,' Luz said. 'I think I'll just make myself a sandwich.'

‘Alright.’ King sat up and cracked his knuckles. ‘More for me.’

But Luz had already picked up the cage and brought it to the door. She opened both, letting the creature out, and it scampered away into the trees.

King sighed. ‘Believe me, he had it coming. You should have heard the names he was calling Eda earlier.’

Luz closed the door again and went to the fridge, making two sandwiches from the least wriggly ingredients she could find. ‘I read out my story in the Azura Book Club today,’ she said as she spread something green over the slices of bread. ‘It was fun. I know you were getting into them, you’re still welcome to join if you like.’

‘Are you looking for a new club President?’ King offered.

‘You could always put yourself forward in the election,’ Luz countered, but the furry demon waved the suggestion away.

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I always get beaten by the Popular Vote.’

Luz brought over the two plates and set them both on the table. The sandwich looked so adorably oversized in King's cute widdle paws as he ate it that Luz spent the rest of the evening showering him with tummy scratches.

After changing for bed and brushing her teeth, the human girl got comfy in her sleeping bag and picked up Cleo’s story. If she read a chunk of it for about half an hour every night she could get through the whole thing in time for next week’s meeting. She considered keeping a pad to one side to jot down notes, but decided that she shouldn’t try to force her own taste of stories with personality onto someone else’s style. She sighed as she turned the first page, and hoped it wouldn’t be _too_ dry.

Four hours later, Luz turned the final page over, blinking her bleary eyes as she found herself back in reality.

It was perfect. The writing style was captivating, the plot was intricate but accessible and the characters acted in ways Luz never would have thought of, except _of course_ that’s what they’d do. It had been like reading another instalment in the actual _Azura_ series, except – and Luz struggled to even think the word – _better_.

She curled up on her side and her eyes fell on the loose pages of her own story that were splaying out from the satchel. A tightness started to form in her stomach as the memory of reading it out came back. Clichéd romances? Anime battle forms? How could she have been so proud of it and not realised what a cringey mess it was?

As sad embarrassment swept through her, the tiredness she had been too distracted to notice enveloping her for the past few hours finally made her eyes draw to a close.

* * *

During the next week she read Cleo’s story a second time to try and find something she could feed back on, some flaw or underdeveloped moment where she could suggest an improvement. But any note she came up with seemed dull and uninspired, an attempt to draw the story closer to her own corny style. And then she read it a third time just to experience it again.

After her final lesson on the day of the next club meeting, Luz dragged her feet on her way to their regular classroom. By the time she arrived Amity and Cleo had already taken their seats and were laughing together about something.

‘Luz!’ Amity called out happily when she entered the room. ‘I was just about to come look for you. Roderick can’t make it today, so we can make a start.’

Luz looked up at the banner which had already been put up on the wall. It looked a little more even than normal.

‘Okay, sure.’ She pulled out the registration sheet from her bag, but instead of calling out the short list of names like she usually did she just ticked them off.

‘So Luz, what did you think of my story?’ Cleo asked.

The human girl hesitated before responding. Ever since discovering Amity’s collection of _The Good Witch Azura_ books in her secret library room, Luz had been so, _so_ excited to share her passion with other people. But now she realised that, before then, the _Azura_ books had been _hers._ Her world, her escape from her old life. And now thanks to the club that she herself set up, that ownership was being taken away.

‘I’m really sorry Cleo,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t get the chance to look at it.’

Disappointment spread over the blonde witchling’s face, and Luz felt a surge of guilt for the lie.

‘But we can start reading it together now,’ she added quickly and pulled her copy out of her bag.

Cleo’s reading voice wasn’t particularly expressive, but it didn’t matter. Her writing style flowed just as well when spoken, and Luz could see Amity leaning forward more and more as the story went on. They got halfway through it before they hit their normal finishing time.

‘I should probably leave the rest for the next meeting,’ Cleo said as she glanced at the clock. _Even the part she stopped on was a perfect cliffhanger_ , Luz thought to herself.

‘That was amazing,’ Amity breathed. ‘The stuff about her feeling pressured to be like her mother was so good, and it’s really relatable because…’

Luz nodded along, grateful that her friend's blathering bout of praise was eating up the final minutes. When Amity had finished, Cleo thanked her generously and turned her eyes to Luz, who quickly stood up from her chair.

‘I’m really excited to hear the rest next time!’ Luz cut the blonde girl off with a forced smile. She went over to the banner to start pulling it down, and pretended to be having trouble folding it up until she heard Cleo leave the room.

* * *

Despite barely sleeping over the last week, Luz couldn’t drop off that night. Guilty thoughts buzzed through her head; what kind of person was she that she couldn’t handle someone else being a better writer than her? Why had her delight at being able to share the _Azura_ books turned into possessive insecurity?

 _Because they were all I had,_ a voice from deep within her mind replied. Luz rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. She had friends now, loved school, and had an actual magical world to replace the fictional one she’d used as an escape. But Azura still held a special place in her heart, and it was painful to feel it being pulled away and broken into pieces to be given out to others.

Luz started to consciously notice the click-clacking sound that had been going on for a while, and realised it was coming from the kitchen.

As she walked in, her sleeping bag draped around her, she saw King sat at the kitchen table with Eda’s sassy old typewriter in front of him. Sheets of paper with freshly-typed text were scattered on the floor and the furry creature pulled the next page out as he finished it, tossing it aside before whizzing away at the next one.

‘Did you get sudden inspiration?’ Luz asked as she sat down opposite him.

‘I always find I write more late at night,’ he said, his claws continuing to clatter away on the keys. ‘It’s the only free gap in a busy schedule, you know?’

Luz smiled. King’s “busy schedule” was made up of naps, playing with his stuffed animals and angrily demanding obedience from strangers who walked by the house. She looked down at the pages on the floor.

‘Mind if I read it?’ she asked.

‘Sure, if you want,’ King shrugged, still not looking up from his work. ‘It’s rated “E” for “Extremely Violent”.’

Luz gathered the pages up and put them into as much of an order as she could figure out. As she read the stream of gore and viscera, she was struck by how much joy was apparent in King’s writing. It was simplistic and repetitive, but there was pure glee in every word.

‘It’s good,’ she smiled tiredly after finishing the last page.

‘Yeah, I know,’ King nodded. ‘I thought I’d peaked with book 17. But man, did I have more where _that_ came from!’

Luz looked at the maniacal little demon happily typing away and felt a pang of envy for his unquestioning confidence. She glanced down at the page in her hand.

‘You’ve used “had had” here,’ she pointed out.

‘I tried to tell him...’ the typewriter said, rolling its eyes.

* * *

Luz looked up from her desk in the club’s classroom as Cleo spoke the final, familiar line of her story. There was a short silence before Amity broke out into enthusiastic applause. Roderick also started clapping - he had been given a quick briefing on how the first half of the story had gone at the beginning of the meeting - and Luz politely joined in with them.

Amity shook her head in amazement. ‘I don’t know how book six can top that.’

Cleo smiled sheepishly. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think it must be your turn to bring something next.’

 _Good luck_ , Luz thought to herself. She’d been trying to persuade Amity to share her artwork for weeks, and every time-

‘Actually, after the last meeting I, uh…’ Amity opened the notebook on her desk and timidly swivelled it around to face Cleo. ‘I drew one of the scenes from what you read then.’

Luz stared at the picture as Cleo gushed over it. She felt another piece be broken off inside her and float away.

The human stayed quiet again for the rest of the meeting as the witchlings discussed the plot of Cleo's story and Cleo answered their questions. But as they were packing away again, Luz felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see the bard-track student looking shyly at her.

‘You really inspired me to share my story,' she said. 'I would never have been brave enough before you did it.' ‘I didn’t really know any other writers until now, so as someone who’s been doing this for longer than me I’d really like to know what you think of it.’

Luz felt another small internal stab at the idea that Cleo was _new_ at this, but saw that the expression on the other girls’ face was anxious. Luz reminded herself of her duty as president to support all the club’s members, took a breath and pushed through the pain.

‘It’s the best thing I’ve ever read,’ she admitted. ‘You’re so talented, and I wish I could write as well as you do. When you write something else I’d love to read it.’

Cleo burst into a bashful smile and put a hand to her mouth. Unable to find the words, she pulled Luz into a hug. Luz hugged her back, a shade more perfunctorily than she usually would, and Cleo gave her another helpless grin before heading to the door. As she left she said a cheerful goodbye to Amity, who was putting her notebook back into her bag. The green-haired girl glanced over at Luz with a smile.

‘You never drew anything for me,’ Luz said, quietly.

Amity’s smile vanished and she glanced down at her notebook. ‘Not… not _for_ you, no.’

Luz frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

For some reason Amity went bright red and quickly gathered up her bag. ‘Nothing, sorry, um, I’ve got to go to my home now, bye!’

She dashed out of the classroom. Luz watched her go, confused.

‘Hey, Luz? Can I talk to you about your story?’

She turned and saw Roderick still waiting in the classroom. She gave a sigh, trying to not make it sound as deep as she wanted it to be; at least she could rely on _him_ to be entertained by her work.

‘Sure Roderick. What’s up?’

The boy took a seat on one of the chairs. ‘Um, so I know in the books Azura has a thing with Malin Gael, but in your story she gets together with Hecate. So she likes boys _and_ girls?’

Luz nodded. ‘Yeah, it was something I wanted to bring to it because I relate to Azura a lot as a character.’

‘So...’ Roderick twiddled his fingers together, his eyes flicking from Luz’s eyes down to the floor. ‘...if someone likes boys and they like girls too, is that… o-okay?’

Luz looked down at the nervous young demon and slowly sat down on one of the chairs next to him. ‘Has someone been telling you that it’s _not_ okay?’ she asked softly.

‘No, but I didn’t… I never heard of anyone _else_ … not until I heard your story.’

The pair stayed talking in the classroom for a while. Luz assured Roderick that yes, it was perfectly normal if he liked both boys and girls, and that’s what she was like too. She told him how flustered she’d felt around the Blight twins when she first met them, and Roderick told her about a boy in his class he had a crush on.

‘Thank you for writing that story,’ he said with a relieved smile as they walked out of the school together. ‘It was good to find out that other people feel the same way as me.’

Luz put her arm around him. ‘I’m happy I was able to help,’ she said as the tension that she’d been holding inside for the last couple of weeks was released. ‘It makes me really glad I wrote it.’


End file.
